Jaguar turns 75 this year- LINK

A Jaguar XKE in the 60s was probably my first case of sports car lust.....what a sensuous shape!

Of course, there were the "reliability issues" shared with many British marques of that era...

I've never owned a Jag and not even sure that I ever RODE in one but have certainly admired the design of many of them.

Wondering about the opinion of others....past owners, current owners (Vyktor and maybe Grannyrod Garage?), and wannabes

What are YOUR thoughts about the BIG CAT

 

Another case of what might have been if England's policies were different. I owned a '63 E-Type coupe, a '58 XK-150 coupe and a '00 S-Type in that order. Back in the day, I could never afford the convertibles or, as the Jaguar aficionados now call them OTSs. Today, I don't really want a new Jaguar convertible. I sometimes look at early E-type roadsters on e-bay.

 

In my teens I put together a 1/8th scale model of a yellow e type. The model was highly detailed and gave me a pretty good idea of just how sophisticated the suspension was. And of course that straight six was a real gem too.

Back in my Air Force days a friend in San Antonio had an e he brought back from England. Right hand drive and the whole kit. Its performance was pretty impressive compared to my old Spitfire. One day we were traveling down a two lane road and got behind a slower vehicle. As he pulled out to pass I thought I was about to die. I could see the oncoming traffic that I thought he had failed to see due to his position in the "passanger" seat. But we were around the slow mover and back in our lane long LONG before reaching that oncoming traffic. Wow!

 

Bill, I remember that your brother told me the XKE was your first automobile! Wow!

btw, I just sent you a PM.

 

I was out looking for a Jaguar convertible when I saw my first S in May 2001...bye bye Jag, S! So I've never owned one.

 

I sat in an XK8 convertible at an auto show when they first came out. The windshield header seemed to be directly in front of my eyes. I have no idea how I would have driven the thing.

I was lucky enough to get chauffeured around London in an XJ6 once. I felt like I'd had a temporary class transfusion.

 

When I was in my teens I disassembled and reassembled the front and rear suspension of my E-type. Ask me why. It was a PITA!!!

 

And sadly, I don't have a single picture of it, or the dozens of other sports cars from the 50s and 60s that I owned.

 

^^^ Bill I know you have been restoring sports cars since your teens.

Someone on the board (not Vintage) was claiming that, for the new Jaguar XK sports car, Jaguar had copied the old Ford Taurus grill design,
while I thought it was obvious all along that Ford had borrowed the 1986-2005 Taurus grill from the 1960s XKE

edit pics

In the mid 60s I had a sweet little red Triumph TR4A. (That was the last rag top I had until I put down a deposit on the S2000 in 1999.) Later in the 60s I started driving the little BMW hardtops. I never had a car that I liked to drive better than the BMW 2002 (Tii) -- until the S. I have driven friends' Jags, but never owned one.

 

OK...why??